I'm new here, so first of all a very jolly 'Hello' to you all! I'm very happy to be here amongst some experts. I'm certainly no expert, in fact, I'm very much the opposite.

I've just put a deposit down on what i think is a fantastic car but really I have no idea if I'm on my way to shelling out £3500 for the proverbial 'lemon' (it's yellow so I am half way there)! I have absolutely zero experience in buying classic cars. I found myself in the Scimitar market a few weeks ago after having a lightbulb moment!

It's my wife's 40th birthday in September and for the first time ever I decided to start thinking about a present well in advance (usually 48hrs seems to suffice). My epiphany came as I strolled past a lovely old Cortina on the way to a pub in Hastings where we have recently relocated to. My wife has always dreamed of owning a classic car and has seriously considered a Scimitar in the past (Which I massively approved of because they're amazingly cool).

So I came across an ebayed se6 GTE 1976 which after some small amount of research seemed like a decent buy. I got the train to London for a viewing but couldn't drive it because the battery was flat. The owners wife assured me it runs normally but her husband who was at work wasn't there to charge it up. The car looked great. Seemed very tidy, engine clean, paintwork original and a bit bubbly close up. In the end I knocked them down from 3795 to 3500 with a 200 deposit to secure it on the condition that I would pay the rest if I could test drive it and it was mechanically sound.

I'll be doing that of an evening next week. If all is well I have to find somewhere safe to hide it until her birthday.